Dr. Sujata Bhan,
IQAC Director, SNDTWU
Department of Special Education,
SNDT Women’s University,
Juhu Campus,
Mumbai 400049
Dr. Sujata Bhan is a Professor and Head of Department of Special Education, SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai. She is a trained psycho-educationist and teacher educator. She is actively involved in teaching, administration, research, and training teachers in Special Education for three decades. She is a registered guide for Ph.D. in special education.
Professor Bhan has conducted extensive research in special education in national and international projects. Her area of specialization is Psychology and Visual Impairment. She has developed a standardized tool, Functional Skill Inventory for the Blind (FSIB), for the functional assessment of children with vision loss. She has written and edited several books like ‘Understanding Learners: A Manual for Teachers’, ‘Inclusion: A Rhetoric or Reality’, to name a few. She has developed course material for special education courses at graduate and post graduate level for various open universities like Indira Gandhi Open University (IGNOU), Bhoj University, YCMOU, and for Diploma courses offered by RCI in collaboration with University of Melbourne and also for Mauritius Institute of Education. She has contributed many chapters in books on special education. Her research work has been published in international and national peer reviewed journals. She is a referee of international and national journals and is in the board of editors of a national journal.
She is empaneled as a visiting member for many national academic bodies like assessor for NAAC, RCI and NCTE. She is member of Advisory Board of DEGSN, NCERT. She is the chairperson of Board of studies(BOS) of Special Education at SNDT WU, and Chairperson Education Committee of National Association for the Blind. She is also member of BOS of Special Education, University of Mumbai, and many autonomous colleges. She has served as a member of various committees for special children for Government of Maharashtra. Prof. Bhan is consulted by various State and Central Government Institutes like NCERT and Rehabilitation Council of India for development of policies and curriculum for education of children with special needs. She is a board member of India Inclusion Research Network. She has been part of Research projects conducted by Perkins School for the Blind, USA, UNICEF, UNESCO, British Council of India, Sight Savers International and Christofel Blindenmission (CBM).
Her international experience also includes a UGC educational exchange Scholarship for doctoral research at Mauritius in 2005 and an International fellowship at Sweden in 2012. She was invited by University of Macerata, Italy, for an academic programme in 2019. She has been invited for many international conferences as keynote speaker and for chairing academic sessions.
Professor Bhan believes the cognitive and conative domain of learning is incomplete without enhancing the affective domain. Her passion lies in creating a workforce of teachers who can make a difference in the life of a person with special needs.